He asked his ex-girlfriend, Venetta Benjamin, to forgive him for what he had done, but told her she was the reason he threw their 3-month-old daughter into the Raritan River in February 2010.

"You did cause and have a lot to do with what happened," Abdur-Raheem, then 22, wrote in the 10-page letter which was read in court today during the fourth day of his murder trial. "You need to look at yourself."

He also said she should examine "how your lies led up to all of this."

Abdur-Raheem, who is on trial in Superior Court in New Brunswick, is charged with murder, kidnapping, attempted murder, endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated assault.

In the letter, which was written in 2010 after Abdur-Raheem was indicted for the murder of Zara Malani-Lin Abdur-Raheem, the Atlantic County man blamed Benjamin for cheating on him during their relationship — and during her pregnancy with Zara — with her ex-boyfriend.

"Zara was special to me," Abdur-Raheem wrote. "I loved her dearly... "I’m not worried about Zara being here. She’s in a better place."

Then, at the end of the letter, he wrote, "What I ask is that you change your heart and mind and have forgiveness for me... I’m sorry."

Authorities say that on Feb. 16, 2010, Abdur-Raheem forced his way into the East Orange apartment of Leno Benjamin, the baby’s grandmother, struck the 60-year-old woman in the head, choked her, and fled with the infant.

In the letter, he denied assaulting the woman and said he was not trying to kill her when he struck her with his van as she tried to stop him from leaving with the baby.

Authorities say that after fleeing, he drove down the Garden State Parkway and stopped on the Alfred E. Driscoll Bridge in Middlesex County, where he either threw or dropped Zara from the front passenger window into the Raritan River, some 140 feet below.

Abdur-Raheem then drove to Atlantic City, where he told his imam that he put his daughter into the water. He then told his parents he dropped her into the river and later confessed to police.

Authorities searched the river for the infant, on and off, for two months. About 8:30 a.m. on April 24, 2010, east of the Driscoll Bridge and near the Route 35 Victory Bridge, surveyors on the southern bank of the river found the child’s remains.

In his letter to Benjamin, Abdur-Raheem said authorities could have found Zara the night of Feb. 16, 2010, if they believed him when he first told them he had put her into the river.

On Thursday, the imam, Terrence Bethea, testified that Abdur-Raheem told him what he had done but was unable to get any more information from the man. Bethea said he then took the young man to his parents’ home in Winslow Township, about 40 minutes from Atlantic City.

When they got to the parents’ home, Abdur-Raheem told his mother and father the same story he’d told the imam.

Initially, neither Bethea nor Abdur-Raheem’s parents believed he had actually thrown his daughter to her death, but after additional questioning and when the young man failed to change his story, his father called police.

"I never lied about what happened," he wrote. "I told the truth. I wanted to get help. Nobody wanted to believe it. They could have found our daughter that day."